


you're the paint on my canvas

by echoofthewind



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Art, Artist AU, Bokuaka - Freeform, College AU, Death, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hospitalization, Insecurities, Loneliness, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Some angst, Strangers to Friends, eventually, heart to heart, lots of fluff, mentions of anorexia, self-realization, some...deep stuff in here, tags will be added as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6420598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoofthewind/pseuds/echoofthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collaboration with Synnja.</p><p>Akaashi realizes he’s in love for the first time. With an absolute idiot.</p><p>An absolute, artistic idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. la fontaine

The world’s changed so much, Akaashi realizes, as he sees his seven year old self sit on the bench by the central park fountain. It’s where everything started.

It’s where his world floods with flashes of color, submerging the old black and white of life with brushstrokes and amiable conversation for hours on end. It’s where he discovers the joy in something as simple as a flower petal or as complex as a human being. It’s where he buries his burdens and worries underneath layers of carefully applied paint on familiar canvases.

And it’s where he learns how to love and be loved.

It was a sleepy summer day. Even now, Akaashi can still drink in the sights and sounds and sensations of the summer heat. He can still feel the sunlight caressing his cheeks, the flowers and grass flirting with his ankles, the soccer ball embracing the insides of his feet. He can still taste the scent of barbeque lingering on the breeze, hear the melody of laughter from the playground a hundred meters away. The thought of _where’s Mom?_ still flutters through his mind, and there’s that wave of relief that always washes over him when he sees her sitting on a bench just a little distance away.

He sees himself, thirteen years in the past, taking in a breath and kicking the soccer ball as hard as he could, watching it bound away past where his mom sat, towards the fountain in the very center of the park. He runs towards the ball, cool grass tapering off into warm cobblestone as his feet take him over to the fountain.

The marble fountain was recently constructed, but the tiled bottom of its pool is already laden with tiny one and five yen coins, most likely thrown by little kids and perhaps desperate adults looking for luck. The water streams upwards in rivulets from the center, and Akaashi’s eyes go wide when he catches a small glimmering rainbow when the sun hits the spray.

He wanders over, crouches down, and picks up his ball. An old man is sitting at his easel on the edge of the fountain a meter away, and Akaashi’s eyes dart to take in the stranger’s features. The soft wrinkles and folds pulling at his cheeks and the corners of his lips reminded Akaashi of the creases he’d make whenever he folded paper cranes, while those grey irises were reminiscent of the stray cat that frequented his front step from time to time. The glance is harmless, a brief acknowledgement of the man’s presence, and Akaashi’s about to pad over back to his mother when-

“It’s a beautiful day to be drawing, isn’t it?”

It’s the old man. He’s gazing straight into Akaashi’s eyes, and Akaashi feels like a deer in the headlights. All he can do is meekly nod, clutching his ball closer to his chest. “...Yes, sir.”

The old man smiles at him, turning his attention back to his canvas. Akaashi stands there, staring down at his dirt-riddled feet for a few moments, ready to return to his mother, when another question is extended to him.

“Say, boy, do you draw?”

He glances up and shakes his head. “No, sir.” Art was one of the last things on his mind; after all, with his family composed of only his mother and himself, they could afford only the barest of necessities, much less the luxuries of paint and brushes.

“Well, it’s quite enjoyable.” The man motions over to Akaashi to sit next to him, and after a moment of contemplation, Akaashi does just that, the smooth, cool marble pressing soothingly into his hands and the backs of his calves and feet. That second question has sparked a flame of curiosity. It burns small and feeble, but it burns nevertheless.

He scoots a few centimeters closer to take a better look at the canvas, and what he sees takes the breath out of him. The sky above splays out in soothing hues of blue and mellow white, while the grass is composed of shades of spirited green and the cobblestone pathways of delicate grey and the flowers of quiet purple and radiant yellow, and for a good few minutes, Akaashi’s convinced that he’s in paradise. He can’t breathe, but just this once, it’s okay.

The breath is whisked straight out of his lungs, but something about this art invigorates him and fills his being with an energy that nitrogen and oxygen and all those other trace elements Akaashi heard in school but can’t remember the names of alone cannot provide.

“W-Wow…” he stutters out with an awestruck innocence. “...H-How…”

The old man smiles down at him and carefully sets the canvas aside, before sliding a smaller sheet of fresh, empty canvas onto the easel. He begins to paint once again. “You can do it too. With lots of practice and patience...you can paint even better than this.” The man’s voice fades into a cordial silence that even to this day lingers in Akaashi’s memory.

Soon enough, the figure of a woman emerges from the brushstrokes, and Akaashi realizes it’s his own mother. Her braided hair drapes neatly over her shoulder, while the bottom of her white dress flutters upwards, each strand in the overlying lace layer weaving together in a way nothing short of surreal. Her eyes are closed, eyelashes grazing her pale cheeks, and her soft pink lips are parted just a few millimeters. The flower Akaashi found for her just fifteen minutes ago is tucked over her ear, the pink petals embracing a few strands of her hair.

The brush and the paint and canvas capture the moment in a blanket of soft green grass below, the soporific oak of the bench contrasting the angelic white of her dress and the smooth black of her hair, the emerald of the trees hovering in the distance underneath a beautifully open sapphire sky.

But it’s not that alone. As the old man works his magic, he weaves everything together with a smile. His delight in his work pervades every inch of the masterpiece, and perhaps that’s what resonates with Akaashi the most.

In those moments, Akaashi’s caught in this beautiful metaphysical universe of design, and deep in his heart, he knows he’ll never escape from it.

He’s so enraptured by the masterpiece that even when the old man retires his brush, Akaashi sits there, eyes blown wide.

The two of them sit in a companionable silence for a few moments, before Akaashi feels something laying in his hands that are resting open on top of his legs. It’s a pencil. He glances up at the old man, the question of _what’s this for_ rising to his lips, but it was soon quelled with the man’s next words.

“If you concentrate and closely observe and practice, it will come to you. But for that to happen, you must first begin somewhere. Why don’t you give it a try?” The man leans over, gently closing Akaashi’s fingers around the pencil with his worn, experienced fingers.

Akaashi finds himself nodding, and soon, his hand moves in tandem with the soft _skitch, skitch_ of the pencil. _This is different,_ he thinks to himself, as his eyes and hands harmonize and compose the sweet symphony of his mother with the paper. Well, what’s on the paper is nothing comparable to what the old man comes up with. It’s interlaced with inexperience and hesitation, clearly the work of a beginner. Nonetheless, Akaashi feels an odd sort of pride when he lays the pencil down and shows the piece to the old man.

The man smiles and pats Akaashi’s head. “...My, my, I think we have an artist in the making.”

Akaashi’s cheeks flicker with a blush at those words, and he glances away, shy.

“...Would you like to draw with me again? It’s fun to draw and paint, but it’s even more fun to draw with someone else.”

Akaashi takes in a breath and grips the sketch of his mother in his small fingers. This was it.

He exhales, closes his eyes, and nods.

“Yes, sir.”

 


	2. décès

It’s ten years later now.

Akaashi dips the tip of his brush into the blue paint on his palate, before meticulously stringing together the remainder of the summer sky. His movements are small, precise, his right hand rising and falling with a practiced flourish. His eyes drink in every line, every touch of the bristles against the paper; his fingers taste the paint that’s dried on the top of brush’s handle.

This variegated world buried in glass jars of paintbrushes, kaleidoscopic pencils in tin boxes, fine paper in drawing pads, and snow white canvases in sunlit rooms is his solace. Here, in half-empty plastic bottles of paint and chiseled down pastels is a sanctuary that can be found nowhere else.

There’s something about guiding a paintbrush along innocent blankness that makes the world come to life and beautiful again, Akaashi contemplates as he lifts the brush off the paper and dabs the tip in a wet paper towel. Something about losing himself within these even lines and calculated motions is wonderfully liberating.

He’s so lost in his work that he doesn’t notice the knock on the door or the footsteps that follow inside, and only when he hears his name being called does he pause and glance up. He finally pulls away from the easel, standing up and walking over to his guest. He bows, before standing upright once more.

“I apologize, sir.”

“There’s no need to apologize, my boy. Never apologize for creating art.” The old man sits down on a stool, and he motions to Akaashi to sit down as well. He takes a seat.

The man turns his head, gaze snagging the watercolor painting in the corner of the small room. He stared at it thoughtfully for a moment. The lively blues and lovely white all came together to form a bright sky of possibilities. “...I’m glad that you had a good day. The first week of classes has been treating you well, hm?”

The student nods and fiddles with his fingers. It’s a habit he’d developed soon after he began creating art seriously ten years ago. “Yes, fortunately. The teachers seem to have taken a liking to me.”

The man chuckles warmly, leaning back a few centimeters. “Always one to be in your teachers’ good graces, hm?”

Akaashi sharply inhales, his fingers pausing. “...I suppose so.” All he did was keep up with the readings and pay attention in class, though-nothing all that special in his eyes.

Both of them are quiet for a few minutes. The silence between them isn’t awkward. In fact, the silences they’ve shared in their ten years of friendship have never been awkward. They’re amiable, welcome even. They communicate just as much, if not more, through their silences, after all.

The quiet’s finally broken with one word. “Keiji.”

Akaashi’s eyes dart upwards from his fingers to the man’s face. “Yes?” For once, Akaashi can’t read those eyes, and it’s unsettling. He’s totally caught off guard.

“...Would you come and paint with me tomorrow at the park?” The question’s posed in much the same as every other time before, and finally, after a moment, Akaashi relaxes and nods.

But he knows something’s shifted. He can pick it up in the way those eyes go hazy and how he notes the corners of those worn lips are turned up even farther than usual-almost a bit forced, even.

Something’s going to be different about tomorrow, Akaashi concluded. And for once in his life, he never wanted tomorrow to come.

* * *

They’re drawing today. It’s a cloudy, windy day, and if this morning’s weather forecast is correct, there’s going to be a storm tonight.

Akaashi’s sketching individual blades of grass, while the man’s working on the old cherry blossom tree towards the edge of the park. The grass has just woken up from its yearly winter hibernation underneath the snow, while the cherry blossoms are already in bloom. Some of the petals have already begun to flutter off the branches whenever there’s a gust of wind.

They work in uninterrupted quiet, as usual. But something about this silence-no, something about this entire day still doesn’t sit well with Akaashi. Unfortunately, no matter how much he racks up his brain, he still can’t place a finger on what exactly was wrong.

After half an hour, though, Akaashi got his answer.

“Keiji.”

Akaashi’s right hand falls still. “Yes?”

A sharp intake of breath, and then, “Both of us know that my time on this earth is coming to an end.”

Those words are difficult to hear. But they’re true. There was no point in denying the inevitable. The man had lived longer than what the doctors had expected. To still be going at this age was wonderful in and of itself, but Akaashi considers all the bucolic hours they’ve spent drawing and painting and talking together even more wonderful. He chides himself for being selfish, as if he’s physically pulling the man back from going home. Despite the constant reassurances otherwise, he can’t help but continue to condemn himself.

Akaashi exhales shakily, and he lays his pencil down in his lap, clutching it in his fingers. He turns his body, facing the man. He couldn’t speak; after all, what could one say to something like that?

“...But even after I’m gone, I want you to teach others the joys of drawing and painting and guide them so they come to fall in love with art.”

Akaashi hangs his head, closes his eyes, and grips the pencil tighter. Part of him wants to cry right then and there and beg to not have this precious man, his incredible mentor, leave this world, but he manages to take in a strangled breath and stop himself from breaking-albeit just barely.

“Yes, sir. I promise to do all that. It’s an honor to have learned from you for all these years. Thank you so much.” The words are honest, heartfelt; they flow out of his heart as freely as a river. Akaashi lifts his head a few seconds later, graced by a small, worn smile and the slightest nod.

“How about we call it a day?”

Akaashi nods, and they pack their things quickly, just in time to save their pieces from the oncoming rain.

They’re on their way home in the drizzle when the man collapses, and all that Akaashi remembers immediately following that were his desperate cries mingling with those of the ambulance and the raindrops and tears streaming down his face as the paramedics take him away.

* * *

Akaashi finds himself in a room with purple walls and dim lights. He’s just gotten acclimated to the clean, mildly pungent smell of antiseptics, when a doctor comes in with her perpetual clipboard and lab coat. He picks himself off the floor and sits down in a seat. He’d been kneeling by the side of a chair in the waiting room for the last half hour, praying under his breath that the man who was like the grandfather he’d never met wouldn’t leave him.

The doctor sighs, seating herself down across from Akaashi. The way the light reflects across her eyes is confirmation enough that things weren’t turning out for the better, and her words only serve to hit Akaashi’s worst fear home.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Akaashi. There’s nothing we can do. But if you’d like, you can spend these last moments with him.”

Akaashi struggles to breathe. The tears are rising up in him again, and oh god, it _hurts._ It hurts so damn much. The colorful, joyful world they’ve carved out together from the fragments of their reclusive lives is fraying at the seams, and in a matter of moments...it would unravel, and all that’d be left were fond memories of painting underneath a gorgeous blue sky by the fountain of that park.

The doctor merely gazes at Akaashi, compassionate. She sees his trembling frame, sees something dying inside him when he hears her words. She knows she’s stating the truth, but she knows just as well as he does that the truth hurts. This isn’t the first time she’s had to break the announcement, but even then, it still stings her when the opportunity does present its ugly self.

All she can do is lay a comforting hand on his shoulder and squeeze gently. “I’m sorry.” She waits till Akaashi lifts his head. She’s relieved when he wipes his tears and nods. “Now, if you’d follow me…”

They stand up, and Akaashi’s guided into a room with whitewashed walls and bright lights. The old man’s sitting up in his bed, hooked up to several monitors and IVs, and despite all that, he’s got a sketchpad and pencil in his hands. His hands shake, but they move across the paper almost seamlessly. He turns his head when he sees Akaashi out of the corner of his eyes, and he smiles just as brightly as when they first met.

“It’s a beautiful day to be drawing, isn’t it?” he says.

Akaashi nearly breaks down then and there, but he manages to put on a smile. He glances outside. It’s raining cats and dogs, and the clouds are a musty grey color, the color of ash, but he still nods and sits down at the side of the bed.

The doctor bows her head and slips out of the room, leaving teacher and student alone.

* * *

The two of them fill the silence with conversation. They both know they have little time, and they make the best use of it. One by one, the layers of their lives come undone, and the minutes tick on. Hours pass, and as their conversation melts into the dawn of the following day, Akaashi finds himself gradually slipping out of wakefulness, and the last thing he recalls before everything changes is his mentor’s aged, worn face with that infinite smile resting on his lips and the wrinkles and dips of their hands melding together in one last intimate masterpiece.

* * *

The old man’s found and declared dead at 12:05 in the afternoon. Three years later, Akaashi remembers that day with startling clarity. He remembers how the doctor wakes him up and informs him that the man passed on while he was asleep. He remembers how he holes himself up in the bathroom and cries his eyes and heart out for hours on end. He remembers how the nurses look at him with pity and how the bed’s occupied with a new patient when he passes by that room one more time.

Life was never the same after that day.

The days proceeding the death are blurred in Akaashi’s mind. The only day that sticks out from the haze of gray is the day of the funeral. He’s weak; he hasn’t eaten ever since the man’s passed despite the complaints of his mother, just getting by on water. He’s thin, dangerously thin, he remembers; the suit he has on that day seems to swim around his body, even though he’d been fitted.

He doesn’t recall what he said at the funeral. He was never much of a talker back then, and even now, he’s still not much a talker.

But he does recall what happens afterwards. He remembers kneeling at the grave underneath a vast cloudy sky, paying little heed to his dirtied pants and shoes. He’s bent over, eyes closed, hands clutched together, shaking, pathetic, weak, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns around.

It’s a child’s hand, and for a moment, he thinks he’s looking up at himself that fateful day ten years ago. He catches movement in his peripheral, and he sees a few more children and adults approach him.

He slowly stands up, recognizing the people gathering around him. The man’s family. He’s seen some of them from time to time, especially the kids...He remembers them not only by name and appearance, but also by voice, personality, and passions.

One of the man’s daughters approaches him with a stack of folders and a box in her hands. She’s clothed in a black dress, medium heels, and hat. Her face is tearstained, and her eyes are a bit red. It’s obvious that she’s been crying. All of them have been mourning like he’s been the last few days.

“Mr. Akaashi…” She starts, voice quivering. She closes her eyes, takes in a breath, and then continues. “We are very honored that you chose our father...for the little ones, grandfather, to be your mentor.” She leans forward, laying the folders and box in his hands. “So please...accept his art and tools...and pass on what he’s taught to you to others.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She’s trying to keep herself together, but she’s in danger of breaking at any moment.

Akaashi stares down at the man’s belongings. He wasn’t alive any longer, but...feeling the weight of the work he’s done over the years almost convinces Akaashi that he’s still here.

_Almost._

Akaashi’s quiet. All he can do is take in the dying scent of musk, the fading physical remnants of his mentor. It’s a scent that is quickly being resigned to his memories.

He inhales sharply, grips the man’s possessions, and dips his head. “Thank you. I will.” His voice wavers, and in all honesty, he wants to break into tears again, but he summons the shreds of his worthless pride to the surface and keeps a straight face. “Thank you so much.”

The woman dabs quickly at her eyes with a tissue, before nodding, returning to the side of a man who was presumably her husband.

The group soon disperses, and Akaashi finds himself alone again underneath the desolate cloudy sky. He takes in one breath, two breaths, three. He murmurs a soft goodbye to the man buried six feet under, and then he’s on his way home. The folders and box are pressed tightly, protectively against his chest, even when he steps over the threshold of his house, trudges up the stairs, and slips inside the comfort of his room. He finally lays the folders and box down on his table, gazing at them thoughtfully.

Something falls out of one of the folders and hits the floor with a soft _thud._ Akaashi bends over and picks it up, thumbing through it. It’s a sketchpad, clearly well used, well loved. Still lifes of birds, open fields, mountains, and strangers glow with his mentor’s trademark vitality underneath his fingertips. They’re all beautiful, breathtaking, captivating.

And then he feels a piece of paper that’s different from the rest. He’s at attention now. He scrutinizes the piece of paper. He’s not sure what’s on it. It seems...like...a woman?

It takes him a moment to register what’s etched on this piece of paper, but then the memory of his first drawing floods over him like a tidal wave, and his room goes blurry. It's his very first sketch, the one he made of his mother in that park all those years ago. He sinks to his knees, covering his mouth, unable to stifle the tears falling from his cheeks and the smile rising to his lips. “...Oh my god. It’s  _horrible.”_

He manages to recover his composure, paging through the rest of the sketchbook. Each and every piece was a testament to the hours they spent together, talking and drawing and painting, and Akaashi was nearly overwhelmed as he kept looking through every sketchbook.

An hour later, he’s at the very last sketchbook. This seems to be the most recent one, considering the better condition of the book relative to the others. His breath’s snatched away with every work, but when he reaches the last page of the sketchbook, his heart stops.

It’s an unfinished sketch of himself. He’s sleeping, upper body curled over the edge of a hospital bed. His young, lithe right hand is gripping a wrinkled hand loosely, fingers resting on blank bedsheets.

The tears surge into his eyes, and he’s choking up, hand rising to cover his lips once again. “Oh my god...oh my god…” That’s all he can say now. His heart yearns to relive those precious moments, but all that time’s slipped out of his fingers now.

He gasps for air, but he doesn’t feel anything in his lungs. “Oh my god…”

He couldn’t hold the grief back anymore. He sinks down to his knees. His fingers trace over their intertwined hands, and as his tears stain the edge of the page, he succumbs to the storm of memories.

_“I miss you.”_


End file.
